Local buckling of aluminum members: Testing and classification

Within the activities of CEN-TC250/SC9, the technical committee charged wit h the preparation of Eurocode 9 on Aluminum Structures, an extensive experi mental program devoted to the evaluation of the ultimate resistance of alum inum alloy hollow members subjected to local buckling under uniform compres sion has been recently completed. The experimental program concerns both re ctangular hollow sections and square hollow sections made of 6000-series al loys and produced by the major European aluminum industries. These experime ntal tests have provided a significant amount of data concerning the influe nce of the b/t (width-to-thickness) ratios on the local buckling resistance of members. On the basis of the obtained results, an empirical formulation for predicting the average strain corresponding to the ultimate resistance is derived and a new classification criterion accounting for the interacti on between the two slenderness parameters of the cross section is proposed. Finally, the obtained results are used in setting up a new method for pred icting the stable part of the rotation capacity of aluminum alloy beams sub jected to non-uniform bending.